


coming down

by lavish (valerian)



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Dark, Angst, Drama, Eventual Smut, F/M, Gen, Here we go, Mental Instability, Multi, Romance, Slow Burn, captive au, follows conquest up to a point and therefore features conquest!takumi, hoping to really explore camilla in depth as well
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-01
Updated: 2017-05-02
Packaged: 2018-08-28 09:20:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8440105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valerian/pseuds/lavish
Summary: Camilla learns that you can't play with a broken toy, even if he is a prince. A captive prince. Her pretty little hostage.





	1. brink of death

War is hell, and Camilla is tired of pretending otherwise. 

Like, sure, she can fake a smile when she swings her axe. She can force herself to chuckle when an enemy gargles blood. 

But when the fighting stops and she is alone, the smiles disappear, hand-in-hand with the self-satisfactory idea that she is a winner, a victor, a _conquering queen._

When she lies in the dark and closes her eyes, her nightmares don’t let her forget, _can’t_ let her forget that she is simply a killer through and through. 

She is her father’s daughter.

And she is not sure that she likes this thought. ‘Cuz she’s seen the fear in her fellow soldier’s eyes when they glance her way. Their words drip with sycophantic admiration, but their eyes read fear. Only fear. 

_Fear of your ruthlessness, Camilla._ Fear of bloody murder.

She’s long resigned herself to this reality, of course: the fear, the judgment, the “I am a Harbinger of Death” stuff, _all of it_. 

It’s just the price she must pay for her heritage. 

It’s just the price she must pay for being a princess of Nohr. 

  


Though tonight, standing in the middle of battle-torn Cheve, she thinks she’d very much like a refund, please. 

The price tonight is just too hefty, just _too much,_ and she cannot bear to watch as Hans and his greasy-haired gang members drag innocent villagers by their necks to the center of town. Skin bruised and faces drenched in tears, the villagers shriek and sob, their all too human screams mixing with the steady gurgling of the stone fountain behind them. 

Hans and co. cut them down, one by one. They cut down wounded Hoshidan soldiers, too, ones whose bodies have gone limp, who are unable to fight back. 

Heads are tossed into the fountain. The scent of blood wafts over the streets, a gruesome fog.

And Camilla is sick to her stomach. The phrase _do something!_ flits across her mind repeatedly. With every step she takes, she thinks, _I could kill Hans. I could kill Hans. I could kill Hans right now._

But to betray father that way? And seal her own death warrant? 

_You are a coward_. _You are a coward. You are a coward._

The look on Corrin’s face is no help either. 

“Camilla, we can’t just stand here and watch,” he begs. “They’re innocent.” The sound of hacking. An old man wailing. “Big sister— _please!”_

“Bury your feelings for now, baby brother.” She looks down at her boots. “Excuse me.”

She has to find Marzia, yes. She cannot carry the weight of Corrin’s shame. Not on top of her own.

She pushes through throngs of villagers running this way and that, through Hans’ laughing henchmen. She spots her poor wyvern gulping desperately from the stream that cuts through the village. The water is murky with blood.

“Darling, no.” Camilla lays a gentle hand on the wyvern’s neck, checking the creature’s scales for damage. “We shouldn’t drink from foul waters.” Human blood is too delicious. Marzia cannot get used to the taste. 

At Camilla’s command, the wyvern stops drinking, albeit reluctantly, lifting her head. 

“There, there, baby. There’s a lake not far from here,” Camilla whispers. “And it looks like there’s no damage on you. Let’s drink where it’s clean. C’mon.”

Marzia agrees with a shriek and kneels to allow Camilla to climb on. Once her mistress is seated, she takes off into the night sky, where the moon hangs brilliant and full among a smattering of stars. Camilla surveys the horizon and considers: this is a night for wolves, evident by the howling all around. 

From her lofty perch, she is also able to take count of the dead. The bodies of their enemies lie still and twisted in ways bodies should never twist; in ways only dead people twist, she thinks, soaring over Cheve. 

There are bent arms and bent legs, bent spines and bent necks. She’ll dream of these images tonight, she just knows it, back in the safety of her bedroom, far removed from this hell.

But, as they approach the lake, she spots something not quite so bent. Not quite so dead. _Someone_ not dead, in fact. Someone very much alive, retreating from the village, crawling on his hands and knees, his face soaked in so much sweat that she can see his brow glisten from this high up. A fallen star. 

It’s Takumi, the angry Hoshidan prince who had vowed not to rest until her precious Corrin met his bitter end. Camilla fingers the handle of one of her throwing axes, though she knows she’s not going to engage. She is fully respecting of an enemy’s right to retreat. She is no Hans.

But Hans is Hans. Or, well, Hans’ henchmen are very much students of Hans’ School of Dishonorable Behavior. She spots one of them stalking the young prince from the bushes. 

She pats Marzia’s head to signal a pause in flight. They hover at the edge of the clearing, and Camilla’s eyes narrow as she watches Hans’ goon draw his sword. 

_The fucking coward._  Would he dare—dare to stab an injured, _retreating_ enemy in the back? How low could these men could go? Camilla grabs the handle of her axe and is about to kick Marzia into action when she hears a second pair of wings flapping behind her. 

She turns to look over her shoulder. It’s Beruka. 

And in this precious second of exchanging eye contact with her retainer, Hans’ henchman attacks. 

Camilla hears the sword plunge into the prince’s back before she sees it. And the prince’s _scream!_ as the sword is pulled out—chills rattle her entire body as she nudges Marzia into a dive. 

She aims her axe at the coward’s head, and her shot is true. It lodges in his brain. 

“Lady Camilla!” Beruka yells from somewhere above.

Camilla ignores her, slides off Marzia and onto the grass. She runs to Takumi’s side. 

“Don’t dismount!” she calls back to her retainer. “Bring a healer immediately.” 

Beruka obeys. Camilla kicks the would-be prince-killer aside and rips the velvet cape from her shoulders. Drops to her knees. Scrunching the cape and pressing it to the wound to stifle the bleeding, she forces the prince prone onto the grass. 

He moans, and the sound is pure agony. And his skin, good gods, is practically translucent. The area around his eyes is especially alarming, mottled by streaks of blue and dark purple. He’s looks to be on the brink of death, and Camilla’s heart stutters to think he might bleed out, right here, right now, under her touch. 

“Don’t—touch me— _scum_ —“

Scratch that. He’s not dead yet. He still has breath left to insult her with (which is, frankly, reassuring). 

“Shhhhhhhh,” she coos. “I’m saving your life.” She presses harder on his open wound, wetting her gloved hands with blood. 

“No…”

“Hush, now.” She can feel herself fall back onto her mothering instinct. It’s always been strong, this mama bear act; in the face of somebody suffering, it’s unstoppable. “We’re going to patch you right up.”

“Let me—die—“ He coughs. “I’d rather die—than you touch—me…”

“You’re not going to die, darling, and that’s final.”

His dimming gaze searches for hers. When their eyes meet, she notices for the first time, by the light of the full moon, how the corners of eyes tilt downward slightly. Tonight, they look impossibly sad. And behind that sadness, fear. So much fear.

“Why…are you doing this?” he pants. “You’re—you’re my—“

“‘My mortal enemy’?” she chirps, faking a wide smile as a bead of sweat rolls into her eye. She blinks it away. “I had a feeling you’d say that, Prince Takumi. But you were also supposed to escape from here unharmed, and somebody didn’t let you do that. I did not approve of that decision.”

Fresh tears well in his eyes, then stream down his face: a sudden downpour. He groans, loudly. “Leave me. _Leave me._ ” 

“No.”

“I _hate_ you…!”

“That doesn’t matter.” Camilla scans the sky. _Hurry Beruka._ “Though I suppose you will be our hostage from now on. So I guess that is a valid reason to hate me.” 

He whimpers at the sound of “hostage.” He lifts his head and digs his fingers into the dirt, which is an effort, though to his credit, he manages to crawl about an inch away before he collapses again. He just can’t move. He can’t move. 

“Poor thing.” She pushes his silvery hair back from his eyes, streaking his forehead with blood. The features on his face are delicate, almost feminine. “Pretty baby,” she murmurs. “I know it hurts. Does it hurt anywhere else?”

She scans his body for other injuries and finds that he’s removed his left boot. His left ankle is swollen and angry red.

“Just kill me, already— _please—!”_ He starts to sob, and his cries rack his entire frame. It's a wonder he even has the strength to cry. 

“ _Mother_ …” he wails. "I'm coming…”

“Lady Camilla!” 

She jerks her head up and exhales in relief to see Beruka and Jakob land in the clearing.

“He’s bleeding out!” she yells as the butler approaches. “Do what you must.”

Jakob nods and raises his staff. "Of course, my lady. Please step back.”

Camilla presses the blood-soaked cape harder onto Takumi’s wound. “But the bleeding—shouldn’t I—“

“I promise I can take it from here.” Jakob waves his staff; the wound suddenly glows in yellow light, gets warm. 

She pulls the velvet cloth away and takes two steps back. The gash begins to knit itself together, by magic. The prince screams, “ _No! What are you doing to me?!”_

“Saving your ass,” Camilla mutters under her breath. She reaches for Takumi’s wrists and nods to Beruka.“I doubt he’ll be going anywhere anytime soon, but could you get me some rope, darling? We can’t risk his escape.” 

Beruka produces the rope immediately, from some hidden pocket of that ratty cloak she wears. “Do you need me to do the honors?”

“Please.” Camilla smiles. 

They bind the prince’s wrists. With the gash closing on its own, Jakob points his staff at Takumi’s ankle. 

“Wait!” Camilla looks the butler in the eye. “Not yet.” 

“Of course, my lady.” 

It’s cruel to delay his healing, but a sprained ankle never killed anybody. And Camilla can’t afford Prince Takumi’s flight. She had used the word “hostage” to describe his situation, hadn’t she?

She full well intends to make this word his reality.

“Let’s get him back to the infirmary,” she instructs. “I’ll fly with him.” 

“Shall I alert the others—that we have an important person in our hands?” Beruka asks. 

“Yes. Wait, no, actually.” Camilla signals for Jakob to help her lift the prince’s body. “Tell Corrin and Elise and nobody else. And we’re taking him to my room instead.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I probably shouldn't be writing this because I work in a crazy industry and the hours are demanding and I'm tired and going on vacation very soon and blah blah blah, but oooo boy. I want to do this. Let's go.
> 
> (Also, the title is derived from me listening to "Coming Down" by the Weeknd on loop while writing this. But really the song has nothing to do with anything. I just like it.)


	2. awakening

When Takumi wakes (which is a surprise in and of itself, let’s be real), he’s lying prone on a bed, his left cheek pressed against a pillow.

This bed is a warm bed, a big bed. The pillowcase smells strongly of some flower—a dark, foreign, heady scent he can’t pinpoint exactly. He must’ve smelled it before though, as it’s familiar.

He inhales deeply, so addicting is this smell, when he catches whiff of his own sweat. The musky odor cuts through his grogginess like a knife.

This is not his bed.

This is not his bed.

_This is not my room…_

He jerks upward, which turns out to be a horrible idea. There’s a dull pain in his lower right back, made sharp by his sudden movement. He touches the spot gingerly, and while his fingers come away with no blood, thank gods, there’s definitely tenderness there.

Because something definitely happened there, to his back.

But…what?

He probes his own memory. He hits a block, self-imposed, as if his body doesn’t really want him to recall. He digs deep, deeper, deepest, and still blackness, utter blackness, and then: a sudden chill down his spine.

_Kill. / Nohr._

_Kill. / Nohr._

_Scum…_

What?

_Ruin. / Ruin and pain. / Ruin and pain and destruction, Prince Takumi. / Destruction of you, of me…_

His hands clench on their own accord. The sultry scent of his bedsheets becomes unbearable.

_Kill…_

“Prince Takumi.” A voice rings true through the darkness, a voice as heady as the perfume.

He turns his head to the side. He tries to flip his whole body over, onto his back, only to realize his ankles are bound to the bedposts.

From the corner of his eye, he catches sight of thick, wavy hair: bright. Lilac.

His heart seizes, and he’s afraid.

“Nohrian!” He pushes himself onto his forearms. “Untie me!”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, my dear.” She approaches the bed, draws near enough to him that he realizes she _smells like these damn, fuckin’ sheets._

Takumi growls. “Scum of this earth. Do you know who I am?” He’s about to launch into a recitation of his royal titles—y’know, His Royal Highness Prince Takumi of House Shirasagi and Dynast of the Ruling Family of the Kingdom of Hoshido—when she stops him with a cluck of her tongue.

“Let’s not play these games, sweetness.” She steps closer to him, then closer still. “We are already acquainted.”

A hand comes down to touch his head, to stroke his hair.

He flinches away, his pride stung more than anything else. How dare she pet him like an animal…?! “If you know who I am, then at least afford me the dignity of looking me in the eye.” He glares up at his captor. “Untie me.”

She regards him with an arm folded beneath her bosom and an eyebrow quirked. “Hmm…”

A sudden tide of anger wells within him, from somewhere deep in his naval. It’s red and _hot_ , this anger—to see her unmoving despite his command; to sense the lack of urgency behind her gaze.

It’s monstrous, this anger, and it makes his head _hurt._

He grits his teeth. “Untie— _me_ —!”

“Alright.”

She leaves the room suddenly. Just pivots and exits.

He hears the door shut; it opens almost immediately again, however, the Nohrian princess returning with a second person, a girl…one with long, dark hair and a veil shielding most of her face from view. She follows the Nohrian princess to the bed.

A rush of hormones floods Takumi’s jumbled mess of a mind. These two women are dressed so…so…the opposite of demurely—and he is a man, is he not?

Still, he hates that he blushes as bare hands reach for his ankles, someone untying him, the silky bindings whisper-sliding off his skin.

Then, as soon as he’s able to process that he’s _free_ , he springs to his knees, lunging off the bed, one foot even making contact with the ground when a jolt of _pain_ hits him, ah fuck, ah fuck—and then he’s hit with a stunning spell before he can quite crumple to the floor.

The girl with the dark hair is responsible for the spell. With blank, unreadable eyes, she maneuvers him back onto the bed with her magic, this time setting him on his back.

The Nohrian princess binds his ankles, and in the process, he realizes that he has a fuckin’ sprain.

And so he is chained. He is trapped.

_Kill. / Kill. / Scum._

“Fuck!” he yells, immobile. “Let me go!”

“Brute force will get you nowhere, dear.” The princess has the audacity to seat herself at the foot of the bed. “Thank you, Nyx. That’ll be all.”

The veiled girl nods, leaves the room, and shuts the door.

“Prince Takumi,” the princess begins, a serene smile spreading on her face.“Let me make something clear to you, shall I?”

“Well, it doesn’t seem like I have much of a choice in the matter,” he grumbles, pushing himself up into a sitting position.

Her smile widens, disarmingly radiant. “Then let me be clear: you are a welcome guest, Prince Takumi. Not an enemy.” A hand reaches for his knee. Pats him once, twice, before he thinks to move away.

“Don’t touch me, woman,” he spits. “I don’t want your sympathy.”

“That’s too bad.” She withdraws her hand. “My only desire is to make your stay as comfortable as possible.”

“Well you can kill that ambition right now: I’m _not interested_ in your sympathy.” He growls, low and feral. His eyes narrow as well, his glare boring holes through her gaze…her one-eyed gaze. Her other eye is concealed by her fringe.

“I’m not offering sympathy.” She blinks. “Just a truce.”

“I’m not interested in that either.”

“Then perhaps a sip of water?” She gestures to the bedside table, on top of which sits a glass pitcher. “Or some tea? I can have that brewed quickly—whichever you prefer.”

Just the thought of tea calls to mind the fact that he is _parched_ , his mouth bone dry. But he resists this need to quench his thirst, oh does he resist his own biology.“I’m not remotely interested in anything you have to give me,” he says, his tone steely.

“Hostility will only speed up your inevitable demise,” the princess chirps. “Why let yourself suffer?”

He sniffs. “I’d rather die shriveled and thirsty than trust you for a second.”

She laughs then, a surprisingly genuine sound. The corner of her eyes crinkle as well, and to his chagrin, he realizes that she’s amused. _Amused._

And to his further chagrin, he realizes (with an unwanted hop and a skip of his heartbeat) that she’s beautiful. _Ugh._

_Filthy Nohrian scum…_

Clean, clear-skinned, bright-eyed Nohrian royalty, with the bosom of a goddess of fertility and the scent of…rose, yes, rose bushes in bloom and—and something more base…

“I don’t know how to address you,” he mutters, dropping his glare. He feels hot all over.

“Well, well, well.” She smirks coyly and scoots her bottom further up the bed. “Nobody is insisting you call me ‘my lady,’ but…if you are willing…”

“I mean your name, woman!” He can feel heat flush his cheeks, his fists clenching again. A pulse of anger hits him amid his embarrassment, darkness, oh darkness, at bay—

“Camilla,” she says. “You may call me Camilla.”

“Princess Camilla,” he says, because he’s no mongrel street rat with no manners. He’s well-bred Hoshidan royalty, and he’d be damned not to uphold the standards of speech that come along with his status—even if the person he is addressing is his mortal enemy. “…How long have I been out?”

“Three days,” she answers simply. “And also, you were stabbed in the back. I saved you.”

Stabbed in the back…? He reaches into the recesses of his memory again, forcing himself to recall, to _remember_ this thing, _anything—_ then it hits him, a memory of pain, of sweat, of anger.

_Such anger. / Scum._

He represses the whispers (the ones that aren’t in his voice). He finds that he must close his eyes. “Why?”

“Why what, dear?”

“Why’d you save me?”

“Because you had been in retreat, and only cowards backstab.”

“But I’m your enemy.” He opens his eyes. “I am royalty from your literal mortal enemy. You should have let me die.”

Distaste curls her plump, red lips. “Pardon my difference in opinion, Prince Takumi, but you were in retreat when you were stabbed. One of my father’s vile mercenaries did it, and I couldn’t—I couldn’t stand it. They had already ravaged the town—“ Her lips press together suddenly.

The silence that ensues stretches for way too long. He grunts to break the silence. “And?”

“…I decided that your fate was not to bleed out in a backwoods.”

“And who gave you the divine right to decide my fate?” he demands. “You should’ve let me die. _In fact—“_ he holds out his hands, palms up, “Kill me now. I order it. I’d rather _die_ than be tied up and at your mercy for a second longer.”

She eyes him for a long, quiet moment. A smile doesn’t touch her lips once.

He glares back.

“Such vitriol,” she murmurs. “Such cowardice.”

“‘Cowardice’?” His back straightens. “I didn’t _ask_ to be saved. And I certainly did not ask to be held here.”

“Well you _are_ now, so stop fighting it.” She stands and sweeps over to the bedside table. He watches her fill a glass of water, and to his surprise, he finds her hand shaking, water droplets splattering across the wood.

She shoves the glass toward him. “Drink this, you ungrateful little  _prince_.”

“No.”

“Do you want to die then?”

“Yes.”

“Do you _really_ want to die?”

“Yes. I’ve made that clear.”

She scowls at him, and Takumi finds a small measure of satisfaction in this.

“Well, you’re not going to die on my watch.” She holds the glass of water to his lips. “Drink.”

He resolutely does not drink.

“I’m going to tip the glass.”

He still doesn’t drink.

She tips the glass. Water dribbles over his lips and down his chin, soaking his unclothed neck and body.

“You are too stubborn for your own good.” Princess Camilla shakes her head and sets the glass back down. “And I am not wiping that for you.”

“I was not going to ask you to.”

Something bright and angry flashes behind her eye. One of her gloved hands sweeps her fringe back from her other eye, and he spots something akin to a scar across her hidden eyebrow. It’s not unattractive. Not that he’d ever say that to her face.

“Prince Takumi,” she says when she’s gathered her bearings. “I am going to leave this room, and when I return, I will be holding an enormous plate of food—which you are going to eat.”

A smirk tugs at the corner of his lips. “I look forward to letting it all go to waste.”

She chews her lower lip. “Absolutely not! You are going to sit here, and you are going to enjoy every bite.”

“I sincerely doubt it.”

“Then say goodbye to any hope you might have for seeing your siblings again. When I ship your body back to Hoshido I won’t have to explain how I killed you. You will have killed yourself.”

“I doubt they’ll mind that one bit.” He grins.

She huffs and looks to be on the brink of stomping her foot. But given _her_ good breeding, she refrains.

To his chagrin, he finds the clenching of her fists, the reddening of her cheeks cute.  _Cute._

"Kill me," he mutters.

"You wish."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took me a long time to update this, I know. I figured since I have this chapter lying around I might as well post it. Going through a really busy time in my life, so I'm not sure when I'll next be able to update, but I'll be thinking about these two. :)


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